Time for Latin America - Revista PIB

Photos: adriana setti
Lindimar, owner of the Via
Brazil supermarket: “The
Irish love Brazilian guaraná,
candies, coffee and beans”
ing door-to-door selling imports from
the home country – rice, beans, guava
jelly, cassava flour, candies and other
tidbits that were snapped up eagerly
by homesick Brazilians.
Now Dias has six vans criss-crossing
the country, all driven by Brazilian
employees. “My best salesman is doing
up to ¤7,000 a week,” he said. “From
here on I want to expand my fleet and
delegate all this area of mobile shops
to him. I just can’t handle all the work.”
In a little over three years, Dias and
his brother have opened four supermarkets
and a wholesaler of Brazilian
produce, all called Real
Brazil. The storeroom
near the center of Gort
became too small to
handle all the goods delivered
by two container
shipments a month
so another warehouse
will be ready soon, big
enough to handle 15
David O’Reilly
Real Transfer
will fly Brazilian
country singers
Bruno and
Marrone to Gort
for a party
containers with a cold store and modern
stocking technology.
In addition, the Dias brothers have
rented a small meatpacking plant in
Tyrellspass, 80 km from Dublin. “The
secret of our success is to use the front
part of the bull, which Irish consumers
tend to sneer at but which Brazilians
and other immigrants such as the Africans
like,” he said. Trading under the
name of Troy Meats, his meatpacker
has four employees producing 4,000
kilos of beef cuts and 1,000 kilos of industrialized
meat products per week.
Both the meat products and the typical
Brazilian items are exported to Portugal,
the United Kingdom and Germany.
And just like the big supermarket
chains, Dias is investing in his own
brand – products such as rice, beans,
wheat flour and cassava flour are sold
in Gort in packaging carrying the Real
Brazil brand.
Dias wouldn’t say how much he’s
billing, but indicated it
had doubled in the last
two years. “If it goes
on like this, I’ll be a
billionaire,” he said.
The goal now is to
build up the business
in mainland Europe
and expand the customer
base. Recently,
Dias opened a store in Setubal, in
Portugal. The idea is to use Ireland as
a platform from which to supply not
just the throngs of Brazilians spread
throughout Europe, but also the immigrant
communities from other
origins and even the local population.
“If the gold mine gives out one day,
for example with lots of Brazilians
going back home, I’ll be able to do
just fine,” Dias said.
So far this meteoric career in
Ireland has netted the young Brazilian
such trophies as a farm in
Cassilândia complete with boat, jetski
and motorbikes, law school for
his younger brother, a beachfront
apartment in the southern Brazilian
state of Santa Catarina, the large
house which serves as home and office,
and medical treatment for his
father, who suffered a stroke. This
last item is costing him an average
of R$20,000 – some US$12,000 –
per month. The party scheduled
for November to mark the fourth
anniversary of Real Transfer, the
money transfer company set up by
his brother Eucles, will be reason
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